


The Reverend's Wife

by dancingontheedge



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, POV Outsider, inspired by a post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 00:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingontheedge/pseuds/dancingontheedge
Summary: Janey Carlisle is one of many girls who was taken with the Reverend before the war.  Now the war is over and he's back, and there's a woman with him.  Janey and the rest of the town's ladies react to the position they had wanted being filled by Emma Hopkins.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this lovely flail about the potential swoon-power of Reverend Hopkins' sermons http://shakespeareia.tumblr.com/post/158762436997/mercurygray-broadwaybaggins-mercurygray

Janey Carlisle is twenty-one years old.  She was seventeen when the Reverend left Fairbrook to help the boys, and she had spent every Sunday afternoon giggling with her friends over knitting.  The day he announced he was leaving in the deep voice that was the source of three-quarters of the giggles (the other quarter was fueled by broad shoulders), she and the girls of the knitting circle made a vow.  They would aid all the boys in any way they could, but they would keep a weather eye on the Reverend and see that he knew that he was not forgotten.  When his replacement, who everyone knew would be temporary for the entire congregation loved Reverend Hopkins, announced that he was assigned a hospital in Alexandria, she was the one who secured a more specific direction.

And so Janey and her friends sent package after package.  They rolled countless bandages.  Most went to the Sanitary Commission, but they each sent about a roll every month to the Reverend, along with little things that could be spared from the farms.  A few jars of applesauce, a quarter pound of cheese, handkerchiefs monogrammed “HH,” dried herbs from Sarah’s garden.  One year, three of the girls, women now, sent maple syrup.  Janey herself was proud of the fine green mittens she had sent him, measured against her brother’s hands.

Today, the town is abuzz, for the Reverend returned two days ago with a woman by his side.  Loretta Dare saw the wagon come in, saw Reverend Hopkins hop out and walk around to help the woman down.  Loretta reported that she was the prettiest girl she had ever seen, with skin pale as milk and hair like a raven’s wing, and that her traveling cloak looked to be as soft as a puppy’s ears.  Loretta was prone to fits of poetry.  Susan, who worked at the Mercantile, said that the girl was undeniably a Southerner, what with that accent.  She added a harumph-- two of her brothers died at Antietam-- but when pressed admitted that the woman had been polite, was undoubtedly quality though her hands looked rough, was indeed very pretty, and had introduced herself as Emma Hopkins.  

Susan’s news was whispered among the young, unmarried ladies of the town.  “Emma Hopkins” was the name on everyone’s lips as they tried to determine if the Reverend had relatives down south, or if he was really and truly married.  Everyone that Janey talked to was hoping for the former, especially as what seemed like half the men in town would not be coming back.  

Janey herself was the one who saw proof of the latter.  She was walking home from the market when she spied the Reverend and Emma Hopkins walking arm in arm towards the church.  Janey stopped, and after a moment’s debate, decided to follow them.  It quickly became clear that Emma Hopkins was getting a tour of the town.  When they reached the church the two of them stopped and turned to each other, so that Janey could see their profiles.  They looked at each other, and Janey felt her stomach drop.  She knew then that Emma Hopkins was no distant cousin come to stay, but instead the wife of the Reverend, coveted for so long by the young ladies of Fairbrook.  The way Mrs. Hopkins leaned in ever so slightly, as though she could not help trying to be closer.  The affectionate tilt of the Reverend’s chin as he looked down at her.  The way their hands had slid down forearms as they turned towards each other, as if unwilling to break contact.  Janey turned on her heel and went back to the mercantile.  Susan needed to hear about this.

* * *

 

Three weeks later, it was agreed that Mrs. Hopkins was everything Reverend Hopkins’ wife ought to be-- and that she was all wrong.  She worked hard and was friendly to everyone.  She showed herself to be the sort of belle that they didn’t often see up north.  She never complained in the hearing of the town about not knowing anyone, about not having servants (for Janey could tell she was the sort used to having servants), about the chilly reception her accent got her in most homes but especially those in black, about how her wedding trip was the journey north.  And it was obvious to anyone with eyes and ears how they loved each other.  How their eyes tracked each other when across the room, how their voices softened when they spoke of one another, how occasionally their eyes would lock and it seemed as if they lost perception of the world around them.

It became widely known that how Reverend and Mrs. Hopkins had met had been over the course of their duties, his as Chaplain and hers as a Union Army nurse.  Loretta declared it the most romantic thing she had ever heard, and Susan’s heart was softened that Mrs. Hopkins had cared for Union boys.  When Loretta learned that they had put off marriage until the war was over so that Mrs. Hopkins could continue nursing, despite how in love they obviously were, she nearly swooned.

In sum, Mrs. Emma Hopkins was almost impossible to dislike, with a compassion that rivaled the Reverend’s own.  But dislike her Janey did, as did most of the Sunday Knitters.  They all felt guilty about it, and made excuses.  “Doesn’t she seem just a little too pretty?” they asked each other.  “It’s not possible for someone to really be that nice,” they reassured themselves.  “She’s so elegant and refined, it’s a wonder she can do anything useful,” left the lips of one particularly bitter girl, who had been more determined than the others to land herself the Reverend.  That had earned her a sharp look from Susan, who on learning she had once been Emma Green deduced that she had penned the letter containing her brother’s best friend’s final words.  

But of course, the true problem with Mrs. Hopkins was that she was not one of them, and they all knew it.  It might have stung less if she hadn’t been so very different from them all.  If she had been a bit plainer, a bit less obviously from wealth, if her accent had been less out of place.  Janey felt it in herself, how petty they were being, and she saw it in the way the others shifted uncomfortably before they started to gossip.  Truly, Janey knew that the Reverend had never looked twice at any of them, and had not noticed them looking.  And now, with his beautiful wife, he would never notice how they all still tried a little harder in his presence.  Janey was only nervously awaiting when Mrs. Hopkins would notice, for she had heard that a belle could fillet a person with words without ever sounding less than honey-sweet.  And Mrs. Hopkins was undoubtedly a belle, or had been anyway.

* * *

 

When Emma notices the extra attention her husband receives, she does not react the way Janey expects.  It happened at a party, several months after the Hopkins’ arrival, and Janey watches her realize what is going on.  Janey herself has made a studious effort to avoid more obvious flirting, as have most of the women in her circle.  The man is married, and it is not right to flirt.  The younger set, who were young teenagers at the start of the war, are not so circumspect-- the Reverend was the first crush of most of them.  Janey understands, for impressionable thirteen-year-olds Reverend Hopkins was the ultimate romantic ideal, and they are not thirteen anymore, and he is back and just as wonderful as they remember.  Janey watches Mrs. Hopkins look around the picnic, watches her eyes widen, and then looks around herself.  Janey sees around a dozen young ladies with at least half an eye on the Reverend.  Two of them are twirling curls around their fingers dreamily and blatantly staring.  A group of three are peaking over the tops of fluttering fans and giggling.  The girl who was the prettiest in town before Mrs. Hopkins’ arrival stands talking to the Reverend, her head tilted just so to show her long neck to best advantage.  The rest of the ladies in the party are more subtle, but an eye used to reading a room can see how the action of the party revolves around the Reverend, despite of the fact that it’s meant to be for Old Man Teller’s 75th birthday.

Janey notices Mrs. Hopkins noticing all of this, and then she sees her smile proudly, like the cat that got the cream.  Mrs. Hopkins is not jealous in the least, and seems uninterested in wreaking the alarmingly polite revenge Janey was expecting.  She tries to puzzle it out, and ultimately decides to ask her about it.  She walks up to Mrs. Hopkins.

“Hello Mrs. Hopkins,”

“Hello Miss Carlisle, are you enjoying the picnic?  I brought the cornbread-- my family’s cook Belinda showed me how to make it.”  Emma’s face glows when she speaks of Belinda.  Not the way it does when she speaks of the Reverend, more subtle.

“The picnic is wonderful, and so is the cornbread.  You should tell Belinda that she taught her student well.”  Emma blushes and looks down, smiling.

“Thank you.  And thank you for your generous gifts to the hospital, during the war.  The men were appreciative of the bandages, and we hoarded the other gifts the town sent as if they were made of gold and silver.  A pair of very fine mittens were given to a soldier who had none, and the syrup was used drops at a time in our tea.”  Janey blinks, surprised.  It had not occurred to her that the Reverend would tell others of his packages, much less distribute the gifts.  But it made her heart flutter that he had-- he was such a truly  _good_  man.

“I-it was the least we could do.  We all love him, here.”

Emma's smile grew, “Yes, I can see that.  And he is so worthy of it.”

And Janey knew without having to ask, why Emma had smiled so.  She was pleased that the town saw the worth in the Reverend; and she was pleased that he was hers.  She knew she had no reason to fear him straying, that the flirting girls were not a threat, and so she was just happy that others saw his value. 


End file.
